My computer renders AE files very slowly. ( I wanted to get the monotonous, grunt work out of the way now and clean up the green screens, which involved masking etc.) I hate that part i want to sit and edit and be creative.

So now I have a dynamic linked project, with the render time projecting at 30 hours: i dont want to wait. The AE footage still needs cutting up.

What I would throw the ae clips over the project and cut and then do the render at the end: is there a way to just have the AE clips be at very low quality so there is no wait or lag?

You said the AE footage still needs cutting up. I edit my project and key it last. That way I only key what will end up in the project. In AE you can do things like skip frames and lover the resolution to make AE go faster.

Thanks Stephen, i've still got footage to shoot and add so i don't know what i will need.. I really just want all the grunt work out of the way now, i hate hate hate hate hate sitting in front of my computer watching grass grow, i seriously don't see how people can do this.. plus ive already dynamically linked the project which i guess i cant undo

I really just want to see my footage playing at normal time in premiere, i don't care what it looks like, so i can cut it and edit it creatively and efficiently, i also just tried lowering resolution playback..didn't work

I've found that it is quicker to export out my AE into a Quicktime movie and import the movie into Premiere instead of rendering the AE file. Then I don't need to do any rendering. But if you are not working with an edit and you are working with every clip you got you are wasting lots of time. You have to edit your project first and then dynamic link it to AE at the end, other wise you will never be efficient and you will waste time keying clips you aren't even using.

Thanks stephen I knew i screwed this up. I am using all the green screen clips just not the whole clip. i'm using 7 seconds of it here, 12 seconds there, and my thinking was it would be easier to do all the keying and masking on one big clip rather than splitting it up into different clips all over the project and then exporting the project back to AE and searching through all the clips in the project (which look alike) to match up the same green screen clips to copy and paste attributes through multiple layers.

If all of the clips are back to back when you are done editing you can select them all and dynamic link them to AE and they will be in one AE project. If they are spread all over the edit you can select them one at a time and dynamic link a clip to AE. Key it and get it the way you like it and then Dynamic link the next clip. It will bring it into your opened AE file. You will now have two comps in AE. Copy the filters from the one you like and then paste them to the new clip you just dynamic linked into the project. Continue the process until you have all the clips done. Then you can export them all out using the Render Que. Hope this helps.

Stephen i really appreciate your help, but I just think i have to be missing something, unless this is a Mecca that everyone is seeking to do.

I have about 100 green screen clips, that i will probably scatter all over a project into around 600 clips. Each lighting was different so of course keying will be different on each of the 100 setups. when i scatter them all over the project i will have to track down each clip to copy and paste the attributes, which could take...a long time. I wanted the keying to be as simple and possible, so i did this first before i chopped them up and and scattered them.

Now i have to:
hunt and peck the clips
or wait 30 hours for a render
or suffer through watching my computer churn out one clip after another.

I was hoping for another, thanks for the info.. i learned a valuable lesson

Any time your dealing with a project that is about an hour long it will be time consuming. Organization is the key to moving fast in the long run. It will make it easier to find things when you need to make changes. If all your green screen clips are keyed and then placed in one giant clip it will make it hard to make changes to the key of just one of the clips if I client asks for that down the road. Come up with a naming convention that will make it easier to find the 100 different green screen clips in the 600 clips. Not sure if this makes sense but I hope it helps.